Console: | Sony Playstation 3 |
TV Standard: | PAL |
Country: | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland |
Developer(s): | Crystal Dynamics |
Publisher(s): | Square Enix |
Release Date: | 2010-09-28 |
Players: | 2 |
Co-op: | No |
ESRB: | T - Teen |
Type: | Action, Adventure |
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is an action-adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and iOS through digital distribution. It is part of the Tomb Raider series, but unlike previous games, the game does not carry the Tomb Raider brand and has a heavy emphasis on cooperative gameplay. In multiplayer, players take the role as either Lara Croft or a 2,000-year-old Mayan warrior named Totec. They must work together in order to stop the evil spirit Xolotl and retrieve the Mirror of Smoke. A single-player campaign mode is available that does not include the non-playable character AI following or helping Lara.
In the United States and United Kingdom, Guardian of Light was released for the Xbox Live Arcade on 18 August 2010; it was released a month later on 28 September for PlayStation Network and Steam. Though local cooperative was available at the initial release for all versions, online cooperative was later added. In North America, on 16 December 2010, the video game was released for iOS devices which included cooperative with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth options. The first downloadable content (DLC) map pack was released for free for a limited time.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was well received by critics. The Xbox 360 version of the game holds an average score of 85/100 and 86.36% on the game aggregate sites Metacritic and GameRankings, respectively. In September 2010, IGN listed Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light fourteenth in their top twenty-five Xbox Live Arcade titles of all time. Critics felt that the game was an excellent fit for Lara Croft.[2] Guardian of Light sold 98,000 copies on Xbox Live in its first six weeks,[3] and as of 22 August 2013, the game has sold more than 1 million copies on all platforms.[4] A sequel titled Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris was released in 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.[5]